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Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

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Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#201

Post by marcosdumay »

gammateam wrote: post #87
zaarn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abmahnung is not a proper lawsuit, it's a mostly legal way to get parties to agree in case of a legal dispute without having to actually involve a court. You can ask to be reimbursed for incurred costs for up to 1000€. The current government is working no reducing the abuse of this legal mechanism. Sending one of these requires you also to clearly show how the recipient infringed on your rights or a law that affects…

Very informative, sounds like a litigious society I’ll take “Semantical distinctions I dont have to care about” for $200, Alex

- If you are found wrong, you have to pay the defending party legal costs;

- If the defending party ever decides to fight and you don't have the approval of the wronged party, you can't even defend yourself (read the point above again);

- It's only for small values, and there is no upwards negotiation (you must lay the costs down at the letter).

That's the government not requiring a judicial process for small values, while keeping all the rights of the defending party (I wish my country had something like that). You may not care about the difference, but that only speaks about you, because there's a huge difference there.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#202

Post by marcosdumay »

dylan604 wrote: post #18
yardstick wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would advise against putting any phone in your checked luggage. Too many dishonest baggage handlers and security screeners around.

Also, lipo batteries are "discouraged" from being checked. edit: adding quotes to help signal the sarcasm

Differently from the security theater on the cabin, unhandled lipo batteries on the cargo are a real safety risk.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#203

Post by gdpgreg »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #72
dawnerd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been to Canada numerous times and the agents on your side are so nice. Also never really had a problem with us agents other than they all seem over worked and under paid. At least that’s what their attitude comes off like to me. I do remember one case where a Canadian agent asked what my profession was and at the time I said “web developer” but they heard weapon developer. Pretty funny and awkward. And Gesh, I k…

> it’s so worth getting Agreed, I can't imagine not having it these days.

That thing saved me 5 hours on its first day.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#205

Post by TomMarius »

taejo wrote: post #191
TomMarius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that based on the treaty? Sorry if I'm mistaken.

I'm not sure which treaty you're thinking of, but I'm pretty certain it's a purely domestic matter. Note that we're talking about 100 miles inland from the border, not something like 100 miles out to sea.

Yeah, that's my mistake. I thought we're talking out, not in.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#206

Post by dsfyu404ed »

flatb wrote: post #189
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Once you've already missed your flight they have a lot less leverage to get your to not stand up for your rights. At that point it's not like you have plans for the next 24hr (the flight was your plan and that ship sailed) so you might as well stand up for your rights, get "arrested", contact a lawyer and have a chance at getting a small "please go away" settlement in a couple years. Edit: changed words around…

Please don't give tough-guy "smart" advice like this on the internet. You're going to end up getting someone as naive as you into trouble. I can guarantee that most any officer will charge you with 'resisting' or 'non-compliance' or some other fuzzy, indefensible legal charge just because you pissed them off by 'challenging their authority'. And now you missed your flight and have legal problems for what, to prove a…

The legislation already exists. The laws that the government agency is usually in violation of in these sorts of situations became effective on June 21 1788.

The actual changes come from some judge who's had a bad day telling the prosecution "no, screw you, the officer's actions were in violation of the defendant's Nth amendment rights, you have no case when you act like this" and then that percolating up through the various appellate courts.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#207

Post by Fnoord »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #190
Fnoord wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because I was coming in from Beijing > and must have looked suspicious or something Can it not be that you were coming from Beijing?

No, my Chinese colleagues on the same (direct) flights were never searched, just me.

Random searches should be the norm. Same for tax evasion, for example.

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#208

Post by philpem »

jen20 wrote: post #199
test1235 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just to clarify ... a member of gatwick airport security staff said that you? >"Hey idiot, get your goddamn bags off the (expletive) belt! Hurry the hell up!" >"God (expletive) damn you! Are you trying to make my (expletive) life hard?! Just take your bags and go, you're holding up my line!" That all sounds so un-british I can't imagine this playing out. Which part of security were you in? I've flown through heathrow…

I can absolutely imagine this at any airport besides Heathrow in the U.K. Heathrow tends to be a bit more polite and more efficient.

Can confirm! London City, as I said, is a hair nicer but that's primarily because it's a business airport which generally caters for a small number of flights (compared to Heathrow or Gatwick).

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#209

Post by LeftTurnSignal »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #155
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am American, living in Norway. I got searched while coming home from Amsterdam. Its OK, I understand, it is Amsterdam, after all, and they want to make sure I'm not smuggling stuff. And I pack very lightly, which doesn't help matters at all. I've never been treated so well while being searched. The guy was kind and polite and smiled a little. I also learned that in his opinion, Americans were usually pretty easy to…

I used to get searched all the time in Seattle because I was coming in from Beijing and must have looked suspicious or something. Anyways, I was never treated poorly in the red line by immigrations and customs. Just one point of anecdata, Seattle is a sleepy place and the airline staff is usually a bit nicer. I’ve never had to go through an extended customs search in another country, however.

I've gotten searched every single time I've went to Canada.

The last time they searched my car, stripped searched me, threw all my stuff on the ground, and after finding nothing told me to "pick up my garbage."

The bright side is, I was only held for 5 hours that time, but I did have a gun pointed at me. The first time was 9 hours, so maybe next time it will only be 3 hours.

Some people are just pathetic humans who get off on being above anyone else.

/I never had anything illegal any of those times and tried to be very respectful. I worked with law enforcement for many years, and know the type of people that they can deal with.

Also, everyone involved was white, so at least there wasn't racism...? I don't know, it's all dumb. None of my complaints went anywhere, and last time I called they said I "had nothing on file anywhere."

Re: Man sues feds after being detained for refusing to unlock his phone at airport

#210

Post by philpem »

Tor3 wrote: post #170
kmlx wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helsinki: "why am i being checked?" smiles looking stupid "no really, why am i being checked" "i don't know, i just work here" "so you just follow orders blindly? can someone explain what's going on" no one could explain anything because Helsinki airport is a piece of..., same as Gatwick or Luton. regarding TSA, since I don't have facebook, snapchat, instagram it's always scary talking to them.

> Helsinki: "why am i being checked?" smiles looking stupid "no really, why am i being checked"[..] In Helsinki, and in a lot of European countries, there's a little gadget in the security check which will randomly select someone for a manual search. It takes the security officer out of the equation.

If it's actually dice-roll random, I can see that working pretty well. It's actually fairly common to use "random coin-flip" type machines in retail -- you do random bag-checks of staff, and they push the button on the machine. Either "search" or "no search" lights up.

The probability is set according to the risk factor of the store, anywhere between "nobody gets searched, this is just to scare you" and "everyone gets searched, no buts".

In my experience, it usually gets set to about 15% probability. Just enough that a few people get searched every week, not enough that everyone has to stay behind for an hour waiting for bag searches.

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